Morning commuters on Doyle Drive, the elevated portion of Highway 101 stretching from the Golden Gate Bridge to Lombard Street, in San Francisco, Calif. on 3/15/06. Transportation officials are taking public comment until the end of the month on the design of a federal, state and locally funded seismic upgrade and widening of the roadway.
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When a Golden Gate Bridge District committee agreed this week to charge congestion-based tolls, saving a $158 million federal grant for transportation projects in the Bay Area, officials and politicians hailed their spirit of regional cooperation.

But that spirit degenerated Friday into an angry war of words between San Francisco and North Bay members of the bridge district's board of directors, which approved a resolution to charge tolls that rise and fall with the level of traffic but prohibited the use of any of the proceeds to help pay for a new Doyle Drive approach to the bridge in San Francisco.

The two motions passed on 10-8 votes, split along geographic lines.

Under the plan, Golden Gate Bridge commuters will pay higher tolls during peak traffic periods beginning sometime between this fall and next.

The Bay Area will use money from the federal grant to help pay for the $1.1 billion Doyle Drive project, a San Francisco traffic signal coordination effort, expanded parking for the Golden Gate Ferry system and coordination of the FasTrak and Translink systems.

But Friday's stormy meeting of bridge district directors possibly fractured something more valuable and difficult to achieve: a cooperative relationship between some of the region's largest transportation agencies and a promise to work together to replace Doyle Drive, which engineers say is structurally unsafe.

"They really cut a deep gash into our relationship with them," said bridge district director and San Francisco SupervisorJake McGoldrick, referring to board members from North Bay counties. "We have to sit down and reconvene and see if we can get them to help us look for some money in Washington."

Before the board meeting, it appeared that the resolution would pass with wording that gave directors control over the toll proceeds and allowed the revenue to be used on San Francisco's Doyle Drive or for projects and services of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, including its ferries and buses.

But director Al Boro, San Rafael's mayor, made a motion to restrict the revenues to the bridge district, and a verbal brawl ensued.

"Essentially, they declared war on San Francisco and on their own people, since they voted to allow a road that is deficient to go on for who knows how many years," McGoldrick said in an interview after the meeting.

Boro did not return calls seeking comment.

McGoldrick accused Boro of reneging on an agreement worked out between North Bay and San Francisco officials, including Mayor Gavin Newsom, that would have allowed the bridge district and San Francisco to split the proceeds of a toll.

The officials, in two "summit meetings," had agreed to separate the issues of saving the federal grant and funding Doyle Drive, McGoldrick said, wording the resolution to allow toll revenue to go toward Doyle Drive if no other funding could be found by July.

Then on Friday, North Bay directors of the bridge district "did a flip-flop on us," he said.

The idea of charging a congestion toll surfaced in August when U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters awarded the Bay Area a federal grant that required congestion tolling on Doyle Drive or at the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco officials planned to electronically collect a $1 to $2 toll and use the revenue to help close a $470 million funding gap that is delaying construction of the $1.1 billion replacement of Doyle Drive.

As part of the grant, federal officials set a March 31 deadline for obtaining the authority to collect such a toll.

North Bay motorists and officials were outraged by the proposed toll, which they labeled a "Marin commuter tax." Golden Gate bridge district officials initially refused to endorse or collect the toll and said the state should cover the cost of replacing Doyle Drive. The furor caused Bay Area lawmakers to back down from introducing legislation that would have allowed San Francisco to collect a separate toll.

Now, San Francisco and North Bay officials must find funding for Doyle Drive. They had vowed to make joint lobbying trips to Sacramento and Washington to come up with money for the project, and San Francisco officials agreed to hold off on pushing for a separate Doyle Drive toll until July 1.